The Gay & Lesbian Encyclopedia, ed. Michael J. Tyrkus, copy removed from circulation, University of Arizona Main Library

I had made it my habit for two years to choose a library and wander the stacks, trying to make my way through the whole library's holdings, one aisle at a time. I paid particular attention to the To Be Reshelved sections at the ends of the aisle, curious what my fellow patrons had been reading. I suppose it's a voyeuristic urge in part, to divine what the last person had been looking up, where her heart or mind was at as she searched. Did she find what she was looking for?

I looked closely at books left on tables after the patron had left and inspected them for human traces.

The carrels by the copy machines or the scanner were particularly rich, I found, seeking some synergy, alliteratively, in luck and the tracks of others. Seeing this note tucked into The Gay & Lesbian Biography I got curious: offensive how? Soon I would find out much more than I expected.

What fascinated me most in these was the depths of the pathology: dude (surely dude, who else but dude is driven this way to piss all over a reading space?) defaced something like half the pages in this 400-page text. Though he surely thought he was operating anonymously he still revealed significant things about himself accidentally through his screeds. I became convinced, for instance, that he demonstrated his own deeply repressed homosexual tendencies and desires through his anger. There's a long bit about how unfair it is how the famous queer can come out but the unfamous queer cannot which I found moving in spite of itself.